Biophilia: Why African savannas are the key to good space
Michal Matloň |
TEDxUMB
• November 2019
Nowadays, more and more people are interested in the space around them. We want cities better for life, better offices for work and cosy homes where we can relax. Architecture and design have long been spoken of as highly subjective areas, where everyone has their own opinion, everyone different tastes.
However, research from psychology, neuroscience, or evolutionary biology shows something else. Each of us, no matter where we were born and in which culture we grew up, has an ancient genetic outfit that has been crowded for millions of years in the environment in which we developed.
Our brain and body originated in close harmony with the jungles and savannas, where each trait could help us to survive, or vice versa, to a quick death. We became so highly tuned just because them.
But what happens when the places we live in - big cities, offices or department stores - start to differ significantly from what our brain is built on? And how can we design them based on this knowledge to make us feel better and healthier?